Borderlands 2 is More than Just the First Borderlands Again

It’s called “content dumping,” and Gearbox hates it...

Steve Gibson, Gearbox Vice President of PR and Marketing, told Develop during a behind-closed-doors meeting at Gamescom in Germany that Borderlands 2 wasn’t just a renaming of the extra content from the original Borderlands.

“At many studios there is a lot of what we call ‘content dumping’, where people make a load of extra content with their first game, put it together on a disk, and add a ’2′ to the original game’s name. It’s a disservice to gamers.

”That’s not what Borderlands 2 is about at all. We’ve truly redone everything. We’ve rebuilt the world.”

We’re glad, honestly. We hate when what could have easily become a simple expansion or round of DLC for a game gets turned into a sequel. Gamers, and massive fans, are tricked into paying full price for a game that’s hardly a full version on its own. It’s an addition to the original property, not a full on sequel that improves greatly upon the basics of the game that came before it.

Right now? We’re looking directly at you, Crackdown 2. You’re an example of what Gearbox may be trying to avoid. Priced at $20 or $30 instead of the full $60, we may have loved you like the add-on you truly were. Instead? Well, you were a disappointment…

And we mean that like a father that never cared.

If Borderlands 2 is truly as redone and rebuilt as Gearbox suggests, then it could be a much, much stronger outing for fans. The original was great, but it lacked a solid story, rewarding characters or any compelling reasons to play beyond loot, friends and violence. Flesh Pandora out enough and we will love you into a million tiny pieces.